


Sweet and Bitter Fancy

by Phoenixflame88



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Community: got_exchange, Dragon Riders, F/M, Gen, Half-Sibling Incest, Half-Siblings, House Targaryen, M/M, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Sibling Rivalry, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2102580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflame88/pseuds/Phoenixflame88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Maybe he would love his brother, if he didn't hate him so much.</i> The blood of the dragon never runs cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When What is Comely Envenoms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> For the 10th GOT Exchange, for the lovely Linndechir. Le Prompt: _‘Maybe he would love his brother if he didn't hate him so much.’ Make it dark, make it messy, make it fucked up. No need to pull your punches […] Actually, bonus if their hatred is mutual._ Most likely WOIAF will shatter all my headcanon. Chalk it up to a really drunk maester at the Citadel who decided to write some RPF?

**_I._**

* * *

 

Maegor finds half a hundred reasons to ignore the Seven. At three-and-ten he’s seen enough to know. He finds their words on poverty, chastity, and humility laughable at best. But what he hates most is their mockery.

Balerion, the blackest terror the world has ever seen, melts stones and burns the souls right out of men. Father is only a man when he watches them spar in the training yard. Nothing he does can _make_ Maegor better. Or make Aenys better—though the Seven and Balerion combined couldn’t manage that. When Father rides Balerion, he is the Conquerer, melting castles like wax and driving kings to their knees with one flying shadow.

But even Balerion can’t fight the Seven, and their unending jape that Aenys was born first. Maegor can’t burn that, break that, or forgive that.

Whispery footsteps drag him from his groggy haze. He must’ve dozed; the fire burns lower and the moon has shifted. Maegor straightens in his chair, untucking his knees and sitting more like Father.

“I didn’t say you could enter.”

The maester has that twisting smile like he humors a squalling child. It’s more insulting than ignoring him entirely. “I am charged with your health. Do you require more milk of the poppy?”

“Do I _look_ like a woman in childbirth?” The poppy dulls Maegor’s simmering temper, but now blunts only the worst of the pain. His shoulders throb and his cracked ribs suffer to keep him upright. He still sits straight. “What happened to Aenys?”

That indulgent _smile_ again. He knows it’s mockery. The old bat’s hands are hidden within his knee-length sleeves. Maegor’s always wanted to coax him near an open flame, just to see the fire fly up those dirty rags. He remembers the iron fireplace poker leaning against the hearth, several arms-lengths from his chair.

“The queen made him aware of his mistake.” The maester has the gall to sound impertinent…somehow. “The prince is abed now. I can help you to your—”

“Do I look like a _cripple_?”

Mother knows he’s strong. She knows he wouldn’t need her softness even if she had any. Not like Aenys who must have everything soft as silver. Maegor knows his fuck-headed brother must be smiling now, grinning like a jackal that he’s grown some teeth. _Borrowed some._

The maester gives a dry chuckle. Scoffs, really. “Like a prince of twelve. Better to realize you are mortal now, while your mother can still save you.”

 _Three-and-ten!_ That fucking _smile_. The poppy-haze makes his thoughts weave. Smash that smile off with iron—he distantly knows he’s reaching for the fire iron, wondering more if his skinned knuckles will bleed through the bandage. Doesn’t he know what happened to the last maester? It’s Maegor’s tongue that bleeds though. He halfway bites it off when his wound tears and pain rips across his chest.

An annoyed sigh and the old bat’s hands flutter free, tugging aside his blood-splotched robe. “You’ve torn your stitches. Enough games.”

_“I will see to him.”_

Mother stands in the doorway, and whatever’s left of that weasel-smile flees at her iron voice. The maester bows, ratty sleeves dredging up new dust. Blood too, Maegor notices. He’s bleeding more than he thought. No doubt the maester stitched it wrong.

“Your Grace, I will need to change the sutures—”

“Get your tools and bring them to me.” No one argues with his mother. He’s not sure why she’s here. His stomach writhes from the milk of the poppy, but also that look of hers like she’s weighing every reason he’s worth the air he breathes. _It wasn’t **my** fault. _ But when she has _that_ look, he knows it’s not entirely true. “Can you stand?”

Standing makes his blood plummet and he reels on useless feet before grabbing the chair. Mother hates wasted time though. She hooks an arm under his and hauls him to the bed. It’s softer than he remembers, even if sleep is the last thing he wants. There must be a basin of water—she’s wiping away the blood with something cool.

She’s stitched her own wounds, sitting atop Vhagar as men died boiling in their armor after the Field of Fire. This late at night she wears a tunic, and the wide collar doesn’t cover the star-shaped scar just under her collarbone. That’s the kind of scar Maegor wants. Not one that makes him feel like chewed-up gristle.

“Why?” She’s looking at his wound, her tone unreadable. She presses with another damp rag to stop the bleeding. 

“The dragon bit me.”

Her dark eyes flick up, and he grits his teeth when she presses down harder, in some spot that sends a jolt down his arm. Her warning. “How did my asking to bring your brother to dinner end with _this_?” 

He bites back a laugh, knowing the more he talks the angrier she’ll likely be. It’s not only the end that got him mangled flesh and cracked ribs, but everything before it.

* * *

The Seven may have pulled a jape, but nothing can change that Maegor was stronger at nine than Aenys was at eleven.

Maegor only remembered Dragonstone’s smell when they first returned, like sulfur and salty rain. _Home._ At least until Father’s new castle became more than bedrock. Maegor has never forgotten Vhagar’s wings flaring and the she-dragon plunging ahead when they first caught sight of the dark cliffs. The dragon hadn’t seen them in almost a decade.

Dragonstone is made of crags, spackled with fields and forests. Fierce, secretive. None of those white nanny-knights dogged him when he first explored the forest around the castle, climbing the rocky hills, standing on the shale cliffs, and ranging to the closest crofters. The dragons were always close. They know the smell of Valyrian blood and the smallfolk know the smell of burning flesh.

Aenys has less taste for Dragonstone. Maegor tolerates him at the best of times. He’s boring, always talking or reading or begging Rhaenys to take him flying. And yet, most times the arms master has pushed some lord’s son _“better matched in temper”_ toward him, the day has ended with Maegor threatening to punch his face in or the fool mistaking a threat for a challenge…which has ended poorly every time.

Somehow, Aenys is one of the few he can stand for more than an afternoon. He’ll follow, at least, when he’s coaxed to explore a new cave. Always bitching about his clothes but curious when they find a jagged maw of stalactites or what he calls a _scenic view_. It’s rare Maegor desires company at all, though the times he does he’s always seething if his brother refuses, sometimes even for the company of their _sister_. Velaena left half a year after they returned though, to follow Orys’ Stormlander wife.

Then Quicksilver wormed his way into the world.

Aenys was given his egg over a year before Maegor. He forgot about it, in truth, until the little beast slithered free a year later. Mother had taken him to Aenys’ chambers herself, Rhaenys and Father already there. His brother was wide-eyed and stupid with glee. _“He’s **silver**!”_ Maegor held his tongue in front of Mother, but he thought the little creature’s scales looked more like cataracts.

Quicksilver soon made Maegor think of a bird more than a lizard. Something wily and sharp in his pale green eyes. Aenys doted on him, perching him on his shoulder like a scaly parrot, letting him drink from his own cup. When he was hound-sized, Aenys cried having to leave him outside, even more when the creature buffeted at the balcony windows, before vanishing altogether. _“Learning to be a dragon”_ Rhaenys soothed.

Maegor thought his brother was finally coming around when he sweetly asked to explore the woods. The moment they found Quicksilver in a clearing a year ago, his muzzle buried in the charred guts of a stag, Aenys flung himself into his own world.

To be refused makes him seethe; to be acknowledged then ignored is worse.

 _His_ dragon, still asleep in its egg, will terrify men the day it hatches. A shade after his thirteenth nameday, it’s been almost a year. Where his brother’s was silver and gray, Maegor’s egg is black and bronze. He’s never been one for jewels or even fine swords. This is prettier. But still useless. Aenys’ egg grew harder and warmer the closer it came to hatching. His egg grows colder and darker. When he wakes to his room smelling like a swamp, he’d scooped it up and gone to ask Mother.

Mother is with child; it’s made the lines around her eyes a little softer. Not that he’s ever feared Mother as most do. Maegor marches into her solar, standing near the ebony table as the maid explains his visit.

When the queen sweeps out of her bedchamber, she’s dressed no different. Velvet breeches, supple boots, flared white sleeves buttoned at the wrist. The only thing Maegor notices is the looseness of her jerkin and the small swell at her belly.

“There’s something wrong with it,” he says the moment her eyes meet his, and carefully sets the egg on the table to show her.

It crunches open like soft bones, and his throat lurches at the wave of rot. A… _thing_ tumbles out. Not the sleek black scales he imagined, or blue-webbed wings like Vhagar’s. It’s a corpse-gray little lizard. He can see the dark table through the hole in its chest, and its long scaly tail limp and peeling.

Mother is sharp and steely as Dark Sister, iron-voiced and merciless to those who cross her. Maegor looks from the broken thing to see her hand at her mouth, another at her belly, and her skin a shade paler.

A trick of the light.

She’s sharp and salient once more. Ordering a servant to take the remains away, she steps close enough to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Birth is a battle. Not everyone wins.”

He doesn’t understand the strange weight in her voice, the way she looks at him too long. When she steps away as the servants trundle in, he takes it as a mild dismissal. He’s not sure how to answer. Even if she rarely rides Vhagar outside of battle or travel, he’s seen her stroke the dragon’s neck after they land. Maegor can understand that. Vhagar is a weapon beyond compare, a bodyguard and trebuchet and fire made flesh. Not like his withered thing.

He’s still puzzled when he goes to dinner in the family chamber. Suddenly Aenys is there, eyes sad and hand moving to where Mother’s was.

“I’m _so_ sorry—”

“ _Shut up._ ” He shoves him away without stopping. What does Aenys have to be sorry for? His beast was a worthless bunch of scales at first but Quicksilver grew into something loud enough to be annoying. He’ll grow into something fierce. However little his brother deserves it.


	2. Not All Alone Unhappy

It’s easier to be wrathful at a thing than an idea. When Maegor strides into the training yard days later, the master of arms throws him into spars hardly after he’s warmed up. The man doesn’t like him much, probably because he always wins and doesn’t pretend that it’s the gods or his arms master.

When the Celtigar squire staggers away, numb from fingers to elbow, Maegor feels like the world is slightly righted. Then he sees Aenys.

His brother lounges on a bench with the other squires, laughing at some stupid jest. The fool’s chest-length hair is pinned back with some bauble that sparkles in the sun. Probably tied by some useless scullion—they’re always fawning over him. The stupid boys know Aenys is a miserable swordsman. Still they like him. Maegor sees now from they way they’re standing and laughing that Aenys is telling them a story. His brother has that groundless ability to charm. Maegor could carve up the lot of them; it gets him respectful nods. Not that he cares. Aenys sups on goodwill, not him.

The more he sees, the more he’d rather sup on blood. Then the Velaryon brat shoves him off-balance—he was looking over too long. Bracing, shifting, Maegor grins. The master of arms always yells at him for using more than his blade in common spars. When this boy does too, there’s nothing the fool can say. It’s over quickly, the Velaryon on his knees trying not to retch up his breakfast.

Like as not Aenys will slap swords with a couple cow-eyed squires, calling it a good day because he’s broken a sweat.

“Brother!” Maegor calls, arms wide, sword in hand. “We haven’t sparred in months. Favor me.”

Aenys’ smile goes tight and thin. He can’t easily refuse, not with his acquired audience. It’s one thing to be a shoddy swordsman, it’s another to be craven. His brother has his pride. With a roll of his shoulders and a mummer’s grin, he strolls to the center of the ring with his spotless boots and practice sword.

Even if he’s gotten a touch faster, a shade taller, he’s never had a chance. Aenys’ jaw clenches when Maegor’s first lunge sends him reeling. He twists back, parrying, keeping his guard decently up. As the spar goes on, Maegor all but swatting the sword away, he finds another reason to grin. His brother has always had a choke-hold on his temper, and Maegor’s done a fucking good job setting it off. Aenys’ lip curls and he actually tries to hold his own.

The master of arms is yelling something but Maegor never hears it. He pretends to step too wide and unbalanced. Aenys wouldn’t take such an obvious lure, but his knuckles are white and his breath is ragged. He lunges. Maegor kicks his ankle out from under him, and cracks his pommel into face. It sends his brother spinning onto his back as he falls.

Aenys’ pale eyes are closed. Blood’s snuffling over his mouth, between his teeth and down his pretty little cheeks. He feels the blunt edge of the practice sword against his throat, a foot on his ribs, and swallows.

“Yield,” he coughs, blood bubbling from his broken nose.

The master of arms wrenches his sword away, calling him brutish, dishonorable…Maegor allows it. He doesn’t care enough to take offense. The man’s an up-jumped hedgeknight from some little hole called Rosby.

He feels better already as he leaves the training yard without another look. Mother won’t be amused, but Rhaenys and Father are in Storm’s End with Orys, to plan the new conquest of Dorne. Passing one of the castle’s stone statues, he thinks of his own wasted creature. If it couldn’t survive an egg, it would’ve made a worthless dragon.

* * * * * *

Near sunset, Mother tells him to find Aenys. She says nothing about the training yard. Now that his blood has cooled, a part of him breathes a sigh of relief.

If Aenys isn’t in his chambers, there’s only one other place he runs to. His brother has no taste for exploring, but Quicksilver’s small glade is just within the forest, a stone’s throw from the castle. He asked once why they let the trees grow so close, but Mother only said Dragonstone was too wet to burn.

He walks there at a sharp clip, looking up only when he hears wings. Vhagar. Her blue-gray body blocks the sun when she passes overhead. Mother’s dragon never bothers them, but sometimes he feels stupid wondering if she’s spying.

Maegor crosses the thin line of trees and stops at the edge of the clearing. No Aenys or Quicksilver, even when Maegor calls his name. Has he found a new place to sulk? Like as not curled up with his pony-sized dragon pup, mourning his broken nose. There’s a rustling in the trees; even birds and squirrels don’t consider the dragon a threat. If it were _his_ dragon…his fists tighten and he shrugs off his broiling anger. It’s not that his dragon will never be another Black Dread, but that it was a stunted weakling all along. Even Aenys’ docile pet is stronger.

He shouts his name again. Nothing. “You should thank me!” he yells. “You’ll look like you’ve fought for once in your life.”

More birds rustle, along with a creaking sound, like wind buffeting tree limbs. Maegor’s neck prickles. There’s no wind to shake the branches. But there is a hiss. He whips toward the sound, toward a wide old tree.

Quicksilver perches on a thick limb that groans under his weight. Aenys sits on the dragon’s back, his nose swollen and crusted in blood. He has a strange, amused little look on his face. _No fucking way he **flew** up there…_then he notices gouges scored all over the tree trunk. His brother’s been disappearing to play with Quicksilver for a year. Never saying a word about—

Aenys murmurs a different word and the dragon crashes onto Maegor. His breath wheezes out of him as he falls, pain splintering down his side. Sticks and bones dig into his back, Quicksilver’s haunch drives into his hip. It’s— _fuck!_ —pressing too hard for him to breathe. Aenys grins.

Fuck if that’s the last thing he sees. Maegor scrabbles for a weapon. He finds a rock, smashes it into the dragon’s sharp little face. A teeth-jangling screech and the weight rears back from his burning chest. He’s rolling free when the dragon bites his shoulder, teeth stabbing and burning at once. Then he’s the one howling. Too near his face are Quicksilver’s slitted green eyes, his steaming mouth. A wing-claw pins him down. Maegor can at least fight for breath—Aenys has finally tumbled off, yelling in Valyrian.

A roar makes his bones ring. Vhagar crashes into the clearing.

Quicksilver lets go just as Mother’s whip cracks across his face, as she calls him unholy names even Maegor’s never heard. He _has_ seen her steel-banded whip tear a man’s face clean off. Dead leaves sting his eyes as the silver dragon launches into the air. Blood splatters over Maegor’s face, hot enough to burn his mouth. _Whose blood…?_

 

* * *

 

Maegor refuses to hiss as the needle digs into his flesh. It shuts him up though. How Mother knew, how Vhagar knew…the milk of the poppy’s made him too dull to puzzle it. She sits at his bedside, fixing the maester’s slipshod stitching. None of his words have made her do more than glance up.

Finally she sighs. “You shamed him in front of the whole yard. Then he found a way to best you. He will be your king one day—”

“He’s weak,” Maegor growls.

Her eyes sharpen, their violet almost black in the flickering light. “You wish your brother’s throne?”

“ _I…_ ” He can’t think of anyone but Father atop the throne. When he thinks of sitting in that ugly chair all day, listening to stupid peasants prattle on about their sheep or lords blathering over a disputed bridge…he wants none of that. Who in seven hells would? “I wish…” His thoughts are jangled and scattered, but Mother’s always forced him to finish anything he’s started. “…the weaker wasn’t the older.” It sounds so stupid from his mouth, but it makes him picture Aenys, and that makes his blood simmer all over again. _I don’t want his crown. I want his…_

She smiles a little as she tugs the string through his wound.

“Something you can never change. Don’t waste your fire.” Her free hand tightens on his wrist, not the bone-grinding way when she’s furious with him. “The king does not rule alone. He needs strong seconds. Your father has his siblings. Aenys will have you and Velaena.” She looks down at her swollen belly, mouth twisting. “And whatever this thing turns out to be. Liking him has nothing to do with it.”

* * * * * *

It’s over a week before he can walk without groaning. There isn’t much to do but breathe deep. Aenys stays well away.

Mother joins him for dinner one night. She’s received word Father and Rhaenys prepare to attack Dorne. No slogging through an ocean of sand this time. Rhaenys will fly to Sunspear and offer a last chance to kneel.

“Why offer at all?” he asks, sitting in a chair across from her. “Meraxes and Balerion should burn it and ask the survivors.”

Were his mother and aunt’s places reversed, Rhaenys would smile that someone agrees with her. Mother scowls that someone shares her displeasure

“Men who kneel on their own—the Northmen, say—are less bitter than ones smashed to their knees.” Her neck flexes, frustrated her belly keeps her from the battle. “True enough, were they not Rhoynar exiles. They’re too bitter to begin with.”

Her fingers trail idly over her stomach. Maegor wonders what it will be.

* * * * * *

Nothing, in the end, when it bleeds out a week later. If he were her, he wouldn’t want a babe so weak it couldn’t even stay alive in a belly. He has sense enough not to say that.

Mother is ashen though, say the servants, even though it’s happened before. She won’t see anyone. Maegor wonders why, when she can just make another with Father. Turned away at her door by his mother’s gap-toothed servant, he almost pushes the girl aside and goes in anyway. Except…he has no idea what he’ll see, and no idea what to say.

He finds Aenys on the widow’s walk, connecting two towers in the family wing. His brother’s precious nose looks reasonably straight, the bruises faded and yellow. He stares at the forest, not the sea, but looks as mournful as any widow. Mother seems not to have punished him though—that makes him angry, that she saw Aenys as having just cause. A part of him wants to rebreak his nose and crack a few ribs, but he breathes a moment until he’s reasonably sure he won’t.

Instead he scoffs. “You’re acting like a jilted milkmaid.”

Aenys tenses, sees in Maegor whatever he’s looking for, and leans against the balustrade. “I haven’t seen Quicksilver in a week.”

“Vhagar ate him.”

He rolls his eyes. “How is Visenya?”

“Fine, why wouldn’t she be?”

He sighs, in a way Maegor almost thinks is a laugh. _Why?_ She’s flown into battle and cut down knights in full plate. That’s when Aenys straightens, leans further out.

“I think I see him! Northeast.” He looks ready to plunge off the balcony as a shortcut. “I don’t know that part as well as you…” he trails off in an unasked question.

Maegor barks in laughter. He’ll protect his throne. That doesn’t involve scavenger hunts or peace offerings.

* * * * * *

When he’s back in his chamber, he sees a cloaked figure scurrying from the castle. The fool going on a scavenger hunt. He’ll make it two miles and turn back from a blister. But later when it’s dark, he knows Aenys hasn’t returned. It might be the one night no one puts much mind to the crown prince. Servants are too busy with Mother, and the best knights are with Father. 

At first he doesn’t care. His brother won’t die of cold during the summer. _Northeast. What’s Northeast?_ Aenys doesn’t know the island very well. And now it’s dark. 

_Fuck._

The shale cliffs, he’s always called them. They’re crumbling and pocked—Maegor’s kicked entire chunks into the sea for fun, but he’s never taken Aenys. If his brother wanders there, pitiful explorer he is…

Cursing him with every name he’s heard Mother say in rage, he yanks on his boots and goes after the fuck-headed idiot. He avoids most of the forest; he knows Aenys would do the same unless he was convinced the little creature was in the trees. 

His instincts aren’t wrong. The ground becomes crunchier and the sea pounds louder. The moon’s large enough he can see decently well. He doesn’t miss that stupid feathery hair.

Aenys stands near the edge, looking down—leaning over. That’s when Maegor remembers there are little caves set in the cliff face.

It would be easy to push him off. He can’t help but think it. Maegor feels the damp wind on his cheeks, imagines how they would feel to Aenys as he plunged. An easier throne to protect.

And yet.

He doesn’t _not_ want to, but whatever fickle part of him disagrees, he can’t close the distance.

“Damn it Aenys!" 

His brother jerks around, a wide-eyed glare. “Or you’ll write my mother?”

“You wouldn’t be worth the paper even if you’d died,” he scoffs.

Aenys’ eyes go wider, then narrow, head cocked almost in question. His breath is shallow, his hair a saltwater-tangled mess, still catching a glint in the moonlight. The wind skitters pebbles over the the side.

_Craaack._

He can feel when the shale is falling apart or just cracking. Aenys can’t. Maegor scowls and takes a cautious step. A small crunch. His brother looks appalled and steps back, his heel an inch from the edge. He’s shivering, his cloak gone.

“I’m your next king!” he squawks so raw Maegor wonders what the fuck is wrong with him.

His brother’s more scared of him than the cliff. _No, that’s wrong._ Aenys wonders the same thing. An evil, sad little death that would never be avenged, because his reckless heart made him more heedless than usual. The small bit of haze drifts past the moon and the shadows sharpen. Maegor gets a better look at the rocks. Damn his brother. There’s pocks and spiderweb-cracks all around his feet. How he hasn’t plunged already is wondrous.

And most likely the moment he notices his miracle he’ll panic and the whole damn cliff will break off. Just like the time Maegor bullied him into climbing the tree with him. The idiot scaled the branches easy as anything. Then the moment he realized he was high enough to crack his head open, his balance went cockeyed and his limbs went all stiff. Maegor finds it stupid when he loves flying with Rhaenys so much.

Tripping and falling now could land them both in the sea. Or splattered on the rocks. He holds out a hand, earning his brother’s bared teeth. Then there’s another _craaaack_. Aenys stiffens.

A part of him doesn’t feel _much_ about Aenys tumbling into the sea. Maegor still has to bite back a yelp if he leans against his ribs a certain way. But he’s expected to be more than that.

“You are my next king,” he grumbles, holding out his hand.

Aenys still hesitates, wondering if it’s stupid to trust him. He must’ve shifted his weight, because the stone crunches, crumbles, and Maegor’s breath hisses. It holds, barely. Aenys is lower than before, his face paler than milk. Getting close enough to grab him would just as murderous as shoving him.

“ _Always._ ”

His brother leaps, grabbing his wrist just as Maegor hauls him close, just as something breaks away and shatters below. Aenys collides with him, an arm hooked around his neck. Maegor hates how fast his heart is beating, and he hates that his brother can hear it. Aenys’ cold lips graze his jaw as he tries to stifle a shuddering laugh. Relief. The little idiot has earned—Maegor sputters in surprise when his hot mouth presses against his.

He shoves him to arm’s length. “What in _hell?_ ”

Aenys laughs like his mind’s cracked. Maegor lets go of his shoulders and he slumps to his knees. His brother’s almost wheezing when he finally chokes out a word.

“ _Liar_.” For all the laughter, his eyes are clear, sharp even. Maegor doesn’t understand, and lets the silence grow steely. Aenys finally gains enough control of his lungs to enlighten him. “I didn’t know you had a drop of thespian. I almost believed you.”

He pieces it together. Throwing his brother off that damned cliff is making his fingers itch again. Instead he scowls. “Believe what you want. You’ll wear a crown someday. I’ll keep it on your empty head.” For all it will matter. Aenys still has a suspicious squint as he stands, dusting off his knees. Scoffing, Maegor drags him closer and wrenches him around. The moon’s vantage is better this way for seeing the stones and shadows. “Look,” he growls, arm around his narrow waist. “That’s where you were standing, you fuck-headed idiot.”

Crumbling shale and rock, freshly jagged at the edge. Probably horrified at how splattering over the rocks would ruin his hair, Aenys squirms against him. Maegor’s blood is warm, like when his temper boils, but he feels more irritated than furious. He notices they’re of equal height now, though he carries far more muscle.

“I saw him,” Aenys says softly, still breathy. “That’s why I was leaning over. I saw his tail dangling out.”

A bit _more_ than irritated. He feels like biting his neck. Instead he pushes away, feeling the wind on his chest again. “Stay here all damn night and write him a love ballad then.”


	3. Uses of Adversity

_**II.** _

* * *

 

Quicksilver, the righteous beast, flies into the stableyard like nothing is amiss, snapping at the scattering stableboys. A dark scab curls around his snout. Aenys bolts for him before the weasel-faced maester can squawk no. Not that either of them would’ve listened. _It’s_ _courtesy_ , Aenys says, that they keep one at all.

They’ve fought since they could crawl. Aenys has never had the strength to fight him straight-on. Now, he’s found a new way to irritate him.

They fight less the days after the shale cliffs, but they argue more. It’s a hot afternoon when Maegor wants to throttle him, over some stupid thing he barely recalls—who would win if Shadowbinders fought Faceless Men. Shoving Aenys against a wall, more in frustration than fury, Maegor’s brow quirks when his brother flashes his teeth. Then latches onto his face, nails biting into his neck.

He snarls and shoves away, heels of his hands digging harder into his brother’s shoulders. Aenys still grins, heedless of pain, all acrid sweetness. “Playing the coy milkmaid today?”

Maegor wonders if he’s cracked. _No, it’s only a new weapon._ His brother is the darling of half a dozen girls.

Of course he tries it again. A few days after, their fight—words and threats, outside the family wing—has gone all the way from the training yard to Aenys' solar. His brother at the height of his bitchery ducked aside as the decanter smashed against the wall. Maegor had aimed _near_ his brother's head, anyhow. Then his mother threw open the door and called them the most worthless brats not to burn in Old Valyria. She's been a prowling tiger since she emerged from her bloody bed. The slamming door leaves his ears warm, his veins boiling.

He rounds on Aenys, who's sunk to his precious _Pentoshi-crafted_ sofa in hangdog meekness. The mongrel look of apology and amusement ends any chance at shrugging off his blackening mood.

" _You're_ the one who threw the—" Aenys starts. 

Maegor is across the room in two steps, dragging Aenys up by his doublet. Half of him snarls this is too beneath his temper, a bigger half doesn't give a fuck. Aenys only braces a foot on the sofa. He could used the leverage to cave his nose in, but he never thinks of the practical things. Instead he pulls the same trick twice, pulls at Maegor’s chest to get closer. With a low little hum he wetly kisses his cheek.

Maegor lets go, as Aenys expected. He falls onto the sofa, just as he was sitting before. Brow raised, his brother expects him to storm off. Not trap him, hands braced on the sofa’s back, Aenys between them, under him, and Maegor’s mouth grinding against his. His brother’s lips are soft as a girl’s. Aenys freezes, just a moment, and Maegor knows he’s outmatched him. He knows his brother will squirm away, disengage, and beat a hasty retreat from his own solar.

Not snake up a hand to his neck, trying to angle his face. Maegor swats it aside, pinning it to the sofa’s frame under his. Aenys’ mouth opens wider and it’s a battle of tongues and teeth.

They both need air, but to the victor go the spoils. Aenys relents first, face twisting away. He makes a sound between a yelp and hiss when Maegor bites his neck, tasting salt and rosewater. He feels Aenys’ whine in his throat, and the way his head drops sideways makes him grin. Then he feels his brother’s ankle hooking behind his, twisting hard. Maegor crashes on top of him with a stifled snarl. His brother huffs at the weight, but his hands grab the back of his head, steadying himself as he squirms around Maegor’s elbow and continues to kiss, even as Maegor growls a warning. Their battle ends when he shoves himself up, forearm against the sofa’s back, and Aenys yips as the damn thing flips over backward. Maegor rolls as it crashes, Aenys sprawls on his back. For once they breathe just as hard.

“You,” Aenys breathes, “are too bloody _loud_.”

They scramble apart just before the door flies open.

* * * * * *

It's as close to a game as they'll ever have. Kissing instead of killing. Fighting on similar footing. It leads them to odd places, like the abandoned undercroft beneath the sept, the catafalques a dozen times as old as Father, where they hiss and kiss loud enough to wake the dust-cracked bones.

Maegor used to think kissing meant kind thoughts and warm regard, but he’s been wrong before. At its gentlest it’s a truce. He’s always thought of a truce as a price more than a peace.

Since his dragon returned, Aenys seems less insulted at the thought of swords. Maegor takes to dragging him to that damned clearing, where they won’t be bothered by the up-jumped hedgeknight. His brother will never be a good swordsman, but he might stand a chance if he gets a blacksmith’s daughter with child. Sometimes, when Aenys fends him off long enough for Maegor to nod his surly approval, he can forget how he wants to snap his brother’s neck when he acts like a fool.

But then, it’s easy to be strong in summer, he’s heard. When the summer ends in blood, Maegor remembers that the Seven are mocking bastards.

* * * * * *

Whatever strength Quicksilver has given Aenys, it bleeds out the day they learn of Rhaenys.

That first day, Maegor knows only what his mother tells him, what he overhears between her and Father. There’ll probably be half a dozen songs about it someday, each more ridiculous. From what he hears, Rhaenys flew to Sunspear ahead of the Stormlander ships. The new Princess of Dorne had agreed to speak, standing unarmored on her own high balcony as the dragon hovered, close enough the young princess was blinking sand from her pounding wings. She seemed soft-spoken and wane, even as her bedchamber curtains fell away, and the six scorpions fired.

When Maegor thinks of Rhaenys, he remembers how pretty she was. Pretty enough to make him fume when she’d wink at him over the table but run her hands through Aenys’ stupid feathery hair. A warm voice, an ear for music. Not an ear for Rhoynar lies.

Her death made for a better song. Meraxes shrieked when the bolt punched through her eye and another through her wing. She smashed into the courtyard, shattering half the tiles, snarling fire as she died. The Dornish savages expected a corpse. Not the bloody-faced queen leaping to her feet, her right arm shattered, and running the first spearman through. Two more went down before she took a jerking step and collapsed as dead as her dragon.

Maegor expects Father to melt Sunspear like a second Harrenhal. He hasn’t. That is the strangest of all.

That night it’s dourer than the undercroft in the castle. Still and silent. Maegor falls asleep wondering how a death a thousand leagues away can make an entire castle go somber. The household wasn’t her family.

He snaps awake sometime later, lunging at the shadow over his bed. Before he can even see straight, he knows the soft throat is Aenys. The bed sinks slightly under his brother’s knee. It’s less he can see him than he can see the light glittering off his sodden cheeks.

“— _can’t sleep_ ,” he coughs out, leaning into the choking grip.

Maegor narrows his eyes. “You’re scared of dreams?”

“ _Please_ —” Aenys shifts his weight, trying to hitch his other knee up to the bed. His fingers knead the skin between Maegor’s knuckles.

A part of him snarls that it’s awful enough the Dornish princess lives, let alone his own crown-sworn brother mewling for solace. Another part, small and skittering, is confused when Aenys clasps his wrist but doesn't pry his fingers off.

“I’ll hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

He wants comfort? Maegor almost howls at him to take his damn dragon and raze Sunspear. Make the viper-princess watch as Quicksilver devours her children. If he did that, returned with a necklace of bloody bones and melted gold, Maegor thinks he would love him.

In the faint light, Aenys’ eyes are half-closed, his breath shallow. For all they’ve mouthed and bitten, they’ve never stolen into each other’s beds. Somehow, the thought of his brother doing anything not to be alone is making him stir. Sometimes, love and hate have little to do with anything.

He lets go, quick enough Aenys falls on him. There’s a breath of relief. Maegor kicks the covers away, rolls over him, and rakes a hand through his hair. His kiss is all teeth, his touch all rancor, but Aenys writhes like a whore. He’s not sure if his brother’s panting or sobbing, and he doesn’t much care.

When he comes to later, eyes still heavy, there’s not enough silver to call it dawn. Aenys sprawls against him, Maegor’s arm around his waist. _A worse nightmare to scare away the others._ He snorts and feels the scratches down his back. They’ll both be cleaning blood from their fingernails.

He nips his brother’s ear. “ _Go_.” Maegor’s asleep again before he can shove him out or threaten. When he wakes it’s nearly midday and his bed is long cold.


	4. Merely a Madness

**_III._ **

_Some years later…_

* * *

 

Maegor hates almost everything about his father’s funeral. 

The king lived long and died quietly. Laid out on the pyre, his black scale armor glints dully in the overcast light. Maegor knows the crown is a replica, the real one safe from scorch marks. That is where his satisfaction ends.

His father’s lords have landed on Dragonstone. He’s spent the morning wondering which ones are plotting something. Visenya’s standing with his sister-wife Velaena, Orys, and Lady Argella on the other side of Aegon’s pyre. “ _They’re all plotting, my dear,”_ she’d said with a hard half-smile. _“Some stirring the cauldron, others letting it boil over.”_ All wanting something. She warned him long ago.

That’s not why he growls low into his brother’s ear. “ _You would destroy Blackfyre? You need every gift you have._ ” The dead Conquerer has no need for Valyrian steel, yet the sword rests under his clasped lifeless hands.

His brother’s grave mouth doesn’t waver, but his eyes sharpen. “I did not ask for your counsel, brother. I asked you to stand beside me.”

He snorts to himself. They have seen less of each other in the last dozen years. Aenys followed their father, happy to return for part of the year to King’s Landing as the Red Keep became half-finished but habitable. Happy enough with his Velaryon bride, close with his four children. Somewhere along the line he found a small bit of steel. Or silver dulled to look like steel. While Aenys took to statecraft, Maegor took to knighthood. People speak of his brother and his charm and polish, of Maegor his jousts and melees. The times they’re in the same castle, they still have a way of ending up in strange places.

Aenys looks across the herd of lords like he knows something each wants hidden. A decent act, at least. He’s chosen odd garb. While Maegor wears his black armor; Aenys has some kind of wool robe, untrimmed and plain at the sleeves. Half his usual extravagance. And he’s moved all his rings to his right hand.

The burning begins. The pyre was doused in oil to speed it along. Aenys addresses the herd.

 _“My father valued his allies. Celtigar, Baratheon, and Velaryon, kin as much as friends...”_ The flames lick around the black scales, throwing red stars across the steel. _“…the Lords of Crackclaw Point, whose fealty he rewarded with no liege but the Iron Throne…”_ Maegor bites back a snort; he never imagined his last memory of his father to smell like roast basted in lavender oil. _“Houses Tully and Tyrell, who my father handpicked to lead his lands…”_

It’s a role call of fond memories, for everyone who remembers three hulking shadows and the smell of burning meat. He almost laughs outright when a roar rumbles over the walls and a hundred highborns go three shades paler. If Balerion had been less than five miles away, they would’ve felt it up their shins. Maegor’s barely paying attention, flicking between the smoldering glow of Blackfyre and the faces of the lords he might have to kill someday. At least they remember the dragons’ fury. The Field of Fire still smells like ash and scorched metal. Visenya says the Faith will be more of a problem.

“ _We honor their memories, and pass on their wisdom—_ ”

Even Maegor blinks when Aenys reaches into the flames. Blackfyre comes out in an arc of flame, steel smoldering with red. The low hum of sundry whispers stopped dead silent.

“My father valued others’ strength as much as his own,” Aenys continues, the sword held up in his left hand. “His sword deserves the Kingdoms’ finest warrior. I give Blackfyre to my half-brother, Maegor Targaryen.”

Aenys turns to him, holding out the fire-clean sword. His brother has always had good control of his face. A gravely noble smile like a self-righteous tourney knight is his newest mask, but this close Maegor can see his eyes are blinking too much, flicking down at Blackfyre as he mouths a word. “ _Blade.”_ He doesn’t offer the sword pommel-first.

For a stupid moment he wonders if Aenys is trying to burn his fingers off. Maegor wears his gauntlets though, and has never been one to hesitate. He takes the blade. It’s hot through the metal, but if Aenys finishes his damn speech sometime today he shouldn’t have to hold it long. He doesn’t miss his brother’s stifled grimace, or his hand tucking into his long sleeves. It was planned, clearly—his brother wasn’t wearing rings on his left hand, and even Maegor knows wool resists fire better than silk or velvet.

Studying the sword, Maegor pieces it together. Valyrian steel doesn’t burn in regular fire. Blackfyre’s pommel and crosspiece are made of different metal. Aenys didn’t realize until the hilt was melting into his skin.

* * *

“You should’ve killed him!" 

Maegor is on his heels into the king’s solar. His brother’s Kingsguard rattle after them but won’t stop him without an order. Aenys turns once the door is closed, his guards outside, smile cocked just like his gaudy crown.

“Kill a man who had no way of fighting back?” His teeth flash, as he pulls the heavy thing off. “That’s just _rude_.”

With a growl, Maegor pins him to the closest wall, their faces close, Aenys' tendons taut under his hands. Maegor still boils from that audience, with the king tilting his head and sweetly denying the holy man his army. _You deny a man an army by taking his head off._ A year of ruling and his brother has kept a chafing truce with the High Septon, but Maegor sees it as a price the Septon will pay until he can better attack.

“They’ll make their army anyway.”

“Ah, you’ve found me out.” Aenys rolls his eyes. “I was saving the surprise for your name day.”

Maegor snarls but he cannot push harder without cracking his collarbone. Aenys barks a sharp laugh when they realize how close they’ve gotten. Sometimes, Maegor thinks if they didn’t have…whatever this is…he’d have snapped his neck long ago.

“You’re being weak.” He drives against him, earning a small sound as his brother’s eyes close. “They’ll spit on your mercy.”

Maegor’s teeth scrape against his neck, just as Aenys wedges his forearm across his throat, pressing into some cord that makes him cough. He pushes back enough to breathe. His brother’s temper is mild, but Maegor has always had a gift for making him furious. A part of him wonders if Aenys will greet him with a dozen crossbow bolts someday.

Then Aenys shatters his imagination when he leans close enough to hiss, “This is _new_.”

Of course the fuck-headed idiot means his laggard’s robe. Gold trim and purple hues _“just so, a dash more lilac than violet.”_ Maegor would rip it off except Aenys uses the space between them to slide to his knees, long fingers tugging at his laces. He’s about to drag him back up, tear that thing into as many pieces as the bruises he leaves on his neck, when his brother’s mouth is around him with a hum and fuck he’s bracing an arm against the wall, his other hand making rings of that silver-gold hair.

In the end, Aenys’ gaudy clothes are nothing more than disheveled. He ducks under Maegor’s arm as he stands, straightening his collar and tucking his hair back _just so_. He leaves his golden crown off—there’s only private audiences in the later afternoon. At Maegor’s gory smirk, Aenys only returns an annoyed scowl.

“If you’ve gotten that out of your system, I have six kingdoms to rule.”

“You or Orys?” He curses the ragged breath in his voice.

Turning to leave, his brother only waves his ringed fingers in dismissal.

* * * * * *

While Aenys tries diplomacy, his family hunts down traitors.

Orys Baratheon is one of few Maegor is ever glad to see. His father’s twisting grin when asked to his face if Orys was his half-brother told him the truth. Aenys is too entwined in his life, too engraved in his mind, too much clashing wrath to count as a friend. Perhaps then Orys is his only one. Sometimes Maegor wonders what his secret uncle feels at having he and his father attached to him and few others.

The self-made Stormlord has gone gray at the temples, more crow-footed at his eyes, but he moves like a man fifteen years younger. He doesn’t act like being old and wrinkly justifies respect. For Maegor, his respect was justified the day he ended up on the ground with his lips and nose a bloody mess, Orys calmly asking if he had more to say. He’d deserved that. It was soon after Rhaenys’ death, and he railed to know why his father didn’t raze Sunspear. One moment he was calling his father craven, as Orys’ dark blue eyes narrowed, grin banished, and the next Maegor was numb from brow to chin, spitting blood in three directions. In the end his uncle pulled him to his feet.

He’s not sitting at the Painted Table to reminisce. There’s a snake of dissent writhing through the kingdoms. Lords braying their grievances too imperiously, diplomats smirking with too much impertinence. Aenys gives them far too much time of day.

Visenya is sure the Faith is the at the root of it. Insidious, though. “We expose the hands of the prime mover and cut them off. It’s some whoreson in a cossack.”

He’d seen her eyes at Aenys’ coronation. No care for his gaudy crown or ermine collars. Only for the High Septon that twitched at blessing his crown. Decades ago the king rode the Black Dread, and self-righteous indignation quailed. Now, the king rides a smaller dragon and has yet to melt another king in his fortress.

Orys points out the politics. Almost every lord south of the Neck claims the Seven, however little they pray. A rich, righteous backer, a young king, what better time? It was inevitable. He shrugs.

“His Grace isn’t unwise to make allies. The problem is some only want blood.”

For Maegor, the answer seems simple. Remind their allies they could burn, warn their enemies they _will_ burn.

Visenya looks at him half like she wants to cuff his ears, half like she wants to chuckle. In the end she offers Orys a sardonic grin. “Remember when we were young enough to solve everything with swords?”

The Hand leans back in his heavy chair. “Or dragon rides.”

“Speaking of the Arryn boy, he has a boy of his own now, twelve or so like Rhaena.”

His mother and uncle speak of how allies and enemies have become more clouded, of ways to root out the most treacherous. Maegor grows restless, wants nothing more than a half-decent knight to fight to the death, but the cupbearer appears with the wine and he supposes it will do.

The last cupbearer was better, he grumbles to himself, when the boy clatters down the tray of goblets.

“Serve my lady mother first,” he snaps as the cupbearer is about to set down his filled glass. “Were you born in a gutter?”

His mother rolls her eyes as the boy freezes. With a scoff Maegor grabs the cup before it spills and drains the Arbor red in two gulps. The boy shuffles on. Summer heat has made the chamber sticky, even with the open balcony. Visenya hisses then, across the table, reaching up to tilt the cup away before the boy sloshes wine on her. Maegor looks closer. The cupbearer’s hands are shaking. The household wouldn’t have taken on someone clumsy. He’s not even a boy, just beardless and soft-faced.

Maegor’s on his feet when the bastard hurls the decanter at him. It clips his shoulder, nothing more. The cupbearer has a blade—it clatters away when Visenya breaks his wrist. Just before Maegor grabs his neck and smashes his face into the Painted Table. The crunch of bone and teeth sounds off though. And Orys’ voice is strangely metallic. Then Visenya says something and he realizes his ears have gone strange. Maegor steps away, leaning against the table, 

“ _Who sent—_ ” The word is lost in the blood that sputters from his mouth, as a thousand hot knives dig into his guts.

He crashes hard to one knee, the world pitching sideways. His mother grabs his jaw, can barely hold it for all the sweat. She’s shouting his name, shouting his uncle’s name. His skull rings almost too loud to hear. His sight's almost too blurry to see he's drooling red onto her hands. 

* * * * * *

He wakes three weeks later to the pain of one still living. And in an empty castle—the only ones who can tell him anything are a Pentoshi healer and his youngest niece and nephew.

Lady Tyanna is his mother’s doing. According to the green-eyed Pentoshi, his mother stuck her fingers so far down his throat he could’ve retched up his liver. It slowed the poison. The cook found their real cupbearer strangled in the wine cellar; Visenya swore the High Septon sent the assassin. She banished every septon and maester from court and summoned the Pentoshi to heal him.

He’s alive, at least. Four weeks later he’s at half his strength, left here while traitors crawl out of the woodwork. Apparently the failure of an assassin to poison the King’s Hand and closest advisers had thrown down a gauntlet.

The first was at Harrenhal, when some bastard calling himself Harren the Red walked in and took it. Orys rode there two weeks ago with a small Stormlander force. They received word the Vale is also writhing in rebellion—against itself rather than the Iron Throne. The Hand will ride there after he retakes Harrenhal. Rhaena rides with him, to charm Lord Arryn’s son. The Reach verges on the same, some family of idiots claiming stronger blood-ties to the king his father burned. Visenya has gone there with Vhagar and two hundred Clawmen, to remind them which bloodline was scorched out of history. She suspects the High Septon is poking and paying for bigger fires.

Queen Alyssa has gone to Driftmark to treat with her father. Aenys, his twit of a son Aegon, and Velaena have taken a retinue north to see if the tree-worshipers are more rational.

Maegor heaves himself up from the shade of the yard’s single tree. The training yard is empty—either the squires are all with their knights or the arms master saw him coming. He takes several practice swings, grimacing at the effort. Two days after waking he’d ordered the fox-faced Pentoshi to help him stand. She’d shrugged and said if the Tears of Lys hadn’t killed him, overexertion wouldn’t either. Only dizzy him off his feet.

The dragon in the sky makes him pause. At first he assumes it’s Balerion or even Vhagar, still far off. It’s a young dragon though, smaller than a horse, with a wiry young rider.

Dreamfyre. The she-dragon with midnight-blue scales and white claws. He hadn’t known Rhaena could even fly yet. The dragon lands like a tattered banner, neck lolling onto the ground. His niece slumps just as exhausted. He sheathes Blackfyre.

“ _Maegor?_ ” She sounds surprised. Then frantic. “Maegor, you have to warn Father!”

 _What in seven fucking hells?_ She's covered in grime and scratches, a raw gash across her brow, snarled hair matted in blood. He lifts her off the dragon, only for the girl to screech like a barn owl.

“ _What?_ ” he snarls.

The she-dragon lifts her head enough to hiss. Finally he sees the unnatural bend of his niece's bruised arm. Swearing, he hooks an arm under her knees and carries her inside, ordering the nearest servant to find Lady Tyanna.

“ _Dreamfyre_ …” she croaks through cracked lips.

“She’ll live.” He has no idea what’s wrong with the dragon, but it makes her stop squirming.

Maegor still almost drops her when she looks him in the eye and tells him Orys is dead.


	5. To the Last Gasp

The Pentoshi woman knows her craft. Maegor doesn’t expect her to ask— _order_ —him to hold the girl down while she sets her arm. It’s days old, stiff and crooked. His niece’s screams drag in Alysanne and Jaehaerys and she claws his forearm bloody, but she stays awake. In between sips of water, his niece talks. At first to order her brother and sister to take care of Dreamfyre. It gets them out of the room at least. Food can wait; she’d only heave it up.

Harrenhal was abandoned. Harren the Fucking Red left House Qoherys at their best table, flies and maggot-ridden dogs for company. No one could track him, and with the princess there, they continued to the Vale. The first sign was the new Knight of the Gate claiming Lord Arryn did not want the dragon in the Eyrie. Orys should’ve refused to go up at all, but Maegor supposes he was distracted. None deny the Hand, and even fewer deny Lord Baratheon. And, he had a small army, though most stayed behind while two-score guards followed them past the Bloody Gate. The farce ended in the Eyrie courtyard. Traitor Arryns had secretly killed the ruling Arryns, forging any necessary letters. Aenys has always counted the murdered Lord Arryn a friend; doubtless they were overjoyed to have the Hand and a princess as hostages.

They hadn’t expected the dragon to bite off the nearest heads or Orys to cause enough carnage for Rhaena to fly away. Somehow his men below the gate got word, but the traitors could hold off a siege with a handful of archers and still enjoy dinner. His niece thinks they’re trying to lure Aenys there with a betrothal. _My brother’s a fool but he’s not stupid._

“And your arm?”

Her voice has gotten deader the longer she’s talked, slumped against Tyanna as she cleans her cuts. She offers a one-shouldered shrug. “They fired crossbows. One hit Dreamfyre and we…fell.”

He arches a brow. “From how high?”

Another lopsided shrug. “We fell through trees.”

The girl had no idea which way was south, but Aenys says dragons always fly home. He has no fucking idea where Aenys even _is_ , not when he’s on dragonback. Nor his mother. _They murdered Orys. They think they can survive that?_ He’s never felt useless before now, and it’s a bitterer poison than the Tears of Lys. Even if he wasn’t weak, the Eyrie bleeds armies white. Sitting here however the fuck long it takes for his brother or mother to find out…

And the chance Orys’ murderer might have a merciful death at the end of it…

And if the High Septon had a fucking _thing_ to do with it…

Maegor realizes his niece is staring at him, unblinking, her eyes still clouded in pain. “ _Fire and Blood_?” 

 _What else?_ He feels as stupid and soft as Aenys when he leans forward to kiss her forehead. “'Until the sky rains red." 

Visenya told him long ago to protect the king. Sometimes protecting the king means caring fuck-all about what his brother would want. Or he’s just too furious to care.

* * * * * *

 _Balerion the Black Dread._ His father’s steed. His father’s companion, in a way Aegon never talked about. Maegor knows he and Orys were close, but he also remembers Balerion turning a span of beach to glass when he died. Did Aenys ever ask Father how he tamed him?

Maegor trudges to the cave Balerion has claimed, in half his usual armor and already out of breath. His rage hasn’t faded, but it’s leveled off enough to think.

Everyone says dragons respect strength, but what strength can anyone have compared to a dragon? _You know you might fucking die?_ He has half his strength at best. _At very best. You were wheezing carrying a child up a flight of stairs!_

Stopping, he knows this cave. Balerion’s clawed out a deeper floor, but it’s still the one he dragged Aenys to, the one where his brother scratched and dug his heels in at the entrance—he was scared of bats, for whatever idiotic reason—until Maegor showed him the maw of stalagmites and he was too curious to be afraid.

 _“None are worthy.”_ He’s scoffed this since his egg cracked open and Visenya looked repulsed. Does anyone but Aenys know it was a private joke?

Maegor never reaches the cave. Balerion’s head appears, then his neck. It keeps going, and Maegor realizes he’s still a good distance away. The air’s already warmer, the grass burned away to ash, the rocks streaked black. The growl rumbles through the ground, up to his knees, and he stumbles. Balerion’s larger than he remembers. Or just larger. _How the fuck does he fly?_

 _You know you’ll likely fucking die?_ He finally gets within shouting distance. The thought of dying has never stopped him before. Scarcely crossed his mind.

“ _Balerion!_ ” he yells, breath raspier than he’d hoped.

A tilt of his massive head, and a part of Maegor wishes he’d stayed silent. He feels the Black Dread’s breath from here. He knows Balerion’s watching him.

Another few paces and the shadow he walks in grows wider. Balerion lowers his neck and suddenly Maegor’s looking into eyes nearly as big as he is. Black, gold, and black again. His father looked into these eyes once. His grandfather. Aenar, whoever the fuck he was, might’ve looked down at a hatchling that crawled from its shell.

A flick of the dragon’s head and Maegor’s slammed with a scaly wall, yelps as he goes flying. He crashes into something hard. A tree, a rock—he’s looking more at the dragon.

 _You are going to fucking die._ He laughs now, thinking how his first moment of fear was Quicksilver’s green eye catching his as his teeth sank into his flesh and there was nothing he could do but make the dragon angrier. Quicksilver is a guppy compared to his father’s monster.

He had a rock back then. He made the dragon bleed before his mother cracked her whip. Because he wasn’t going to die seeing another smile about it.

But no one is smiling. Balerion’s muzzle follows his unexpected flight, soaking him with a vapory breath.

Maegor has Blackfyre now. He could make this beast bleed. He’d die, but he wouldn’t die the only one in pain. It scrapes in its sheath as he fumbles for it. For a priceless sword it has an ugly hilt. He’s never let anyone else touch it.

* * *

He hated his father’s funeral. Then Aenys stuck his hand in the pyre and drew out Blackfyre. His brother hadn’t thought it through that a Valyrian steel blade did not mean a Valyrian steel pommel, but he also knew this was a moment a hundred lords would judge him by. A hundred wars or a hundred loyalties?

Maegor had been curious when he saw Aenys’ rings all moved to his right hand. Who the fuck wears rings on their right hand unless they’re planning to hurt someone?

Except Aenys isn’t right-handed. Maegor learned that the day he disarmed him for the hundredth time. He’d dragged his brother up to the damn glade to try to teach him whatever the arms master wasn’t. Which was fucking everything. He knocked his sword loose and was about to knock his teeth loose, when Aenys punched him in the throat. A real punch. _What the fuck in seven fucking hells?_ He might’ve snarled this if he could. Instead he coughed and spat, just as Aenys backhanded him. Maegor was looking the right way by then. It hit, but he’d grabbed his arm and it was stinging more than painful. Of course he tackled him to the ground, straddled his chest until Aenys was still enough he could rub his burning throat.

“Why’d you hit me with the wrong hand?”

“Why the _fuck_ is it wrong?!” Aenys yowled, breath shallow, face red. His eyes were watering, more with emotion than pain.

“Careful,” Maegor said, roughly patting his cheek, twisting his hand away before Aenys could bite it. “You’ll develop an unkingly mouth.” If he thought back, he could recall the arms master cracking the sword from Aenys' left hand, bleeding his knuckles, only to knock it twice as easily out of his right hand. Thoughts hit him at once. He tried to parse them out, stay silent like Father, wary like Rhaenys, but he was his mother’s son, and she oft laughed that her father gave her Dark Sister for more than one reason.

“ _It’s not the wrong hand if it makes you win!_ ” Maegor snarled, spit flying, wishing he didn’t get so furious so easily.

It was a rare moment he ever thought of Aenys as his older brother. He was his idiot brother, his fuck-head brother, his fuck-headed idiot brother. For once it was different. Aenys snaked a hand out from under his knee, knuckles grazing his cheek. Perplexed, taken aback, but forcing a smile to his voice. “Teach me how to win, then?” Maegor couldn’t do that. But he made him better than awful.

* * * * * *

After his father’s funeral, Velaena called out to him. The sister-wife who tolerated him, as he tolerated her. He stopped, just inside the doors of the castle. They were alone. She’d held up an old scabbard. Father’s.

“You knew?” he growled.

She stepped closer, smiling a bit as she undid his belt and switched the scabbards. His for Father’s empty one. He still held Blackfyre by the blade, though it was beginning to make him twitch with pain. Finally she licked her fingers like she was about to put out a candle, took the coal-hot sword from him, and slid it into its sheath. The pommel was still deformed and soft from the fire. She’d taken the blade quickly, before the steel could burn her.

“I guessed, little brother.”

They finally walked into the family wing, to the next strange sight of the day. His mother stood with Aenys, his left hand in hers. The court whispered about Visenya being a dark sorceress. That day she was only studying the burn, picking off bits of hardening steel with her deft fingers as he winced in pain.

“You impressed them. That’s worth some skin, I think.” A murmur from her, the strongest person he knew. Maegor had never thought of them as having anything to do with each other. 

While Blackfyre’s pommel was still soft and searing, he’d held his breath and grabbed it with his sword hand. He held it until the hilt fit his hand and no one else’s. It cost him most of the lines on his right palm, but it healed in time.

* * *

Maegor blinks into the hottest day he can remember, only to see a familiar cave and a hulking black muzzle growling steam at him.

 _Did I really fucking die?_ It’s a delirious thought, before he remembers Balerion knocked him aside. He’s off his feet, propped against a rock, blood dripping down his neck. The Pentoshi had warned him he might get lightheaded.

He reaches again for his sword. Die in one bite or one fiery breath, but Balerion would have one more scar. Maybe even a gouged-out eye. Another scar among a hundred. Hardly a show of strength, at least none the dragon wouldn’t kill him for. He feels every curve of Blackfyre’s pommel.

Maegor lets go, the sword rattling in its sheath.

Instead, he reaches up to Balerion’s long muzzle. Scales over bone. Warm and smooth, thicker than plate. His hand curls over one of the dragon’s small tines. He forces himself not to move, even when steam rolls from the dragon’s mouth while his own tongue goes dry.

It could be an hour or a moment. Balerion breathes, ribs spreading, wings flaring. The heat is thickest near his mouth. Fire waiting to burn his soul right out. The old dragon pulls back, hauling him not ungently to his feet. Maegor has to hold on longer though, until his head stops reeling. He can’t tell what Balerion’s thinking, only that he’s not about to die.

* * * * * *

Balerion surges beneath him, his own eye of a storm. Maegor hasn’t flown with Visenya on Vhagar in years—a part of him wonders if he’s about to roll right off. They reach the Vale in a flare of wings. He doesn’t know if he ordered it or if the Black Dread simply knew. Balerion flies higher, flies for the Eyrie. Maegor can see the snow in front of him, but the dragon is warm enough under his legs that he hardly feels the chill.

The Eyrie is as high and proud, the aerie of the Falcon Kings. Their bloodline is spent, dripped into craven backstabbers who wouldn’t find honor at the bottom of a ditch. Maegor has never professed to have honor. It’s pride, pure and sharp, but Aenys has babbled enough stories that Maegor thinks he has an idea.

Balerion crashes onto a high tower, claws digging into the stone, the whole thing swaying. Maegor’s heart is in his throat as he swears to himself he won’t fall. He’s one of the best lancers in six kingdoms—he doesn’t just fall off, no matter how lightheaded he feels.

It’s a warning anyhow, as Balerion pushes off, smashing down in the courtyard and growling so low the mountain quakes. No way in seven hells are they not listening.

“ _End this kinslaying bastard who leads you, or I will burn this entire fucking mountain!_ ” Aenys would find more dignified words, but Maegor is only half his brother’s blood. “Send word to the Hand’s men that you surrender, show yourselves now, and there will be mercy.”

There’s hissing all around him, as snow steams off Balerion. It isn’t long before there’s a scream he can’t see, a fall he can’t hear, but between the two his uncle’s murderer has plummeted out the Moon Door. The Arryn traitors dance to his command, walking stiff-legged through the courtyard and falling to their worthless knees in the summer snow. A raven flutters from another tower.

Maegor waits for Orys’ men to march. They’ll have some rope. 

* * * * * *

He does grant the traitors mercy, a snap of the neck instead of fire and melting eyeballs. Even as he looks at the the Eyrie’s snow-capped spires, the swaying corpses of the Vale cutthroats, he feels warm atop Balerion. Warm, if woozy.

 _You can’t use him to solve every problem._ Maegor knows this. _As you know there’s little chance of holding to that. Certainly not for the High Septon._

As for the Arryns, there will be some jumbling of family trees to figure out who rules the Vale now. He doesn’t care. He’s made the sky rain blood from their bleeding mouths and bloodshot eyes, and that’s enough for now.

* * * * * *

Quicksilver dives like a peregrine three days later. Aenys has left his twat of a son and Maegor’s wife behind, wherever between here and Winterfell his retinue is.

 _It would be easy._ It’s always been a passive curiosity. He still feels the Black Dread shift beside him, like a courser with its ears pricked. A courser that has no problem tearing open the throat of the other horse. _Shut up, damn lizard._ He sinks to one knee as Aenys slides off Quicksilver. It isn’t difficult to kneel to his brother in front of his men, when Aenys kneels readily behind his door.

His brother looks at the line of corpses hanging from the Eyrie, his mouth unreadable.

“Was this necessary?” he finally says.

Maegor wants to slap the judgment off his face as he rises carefully. Instead he breathes. “They murdered our uncle. They would’ve stolen Rhaena if she hadn’t—”

Aenys slips closer, pale eyes meeting his. “It was necessary then.” He won’t forget though. He regards Balerion, slowly reaches up a hand. The old dragon dips his head low enough for his fingers to brush his muzzle. “I hope this one’s worthy enough.”

Maegor can’t tell what his brother thinks of Balerion having a rider again. He doesn’t really care. “He’ll do.”

Aenys finally offers a small smile, eyes clearer in the cold. “I need a new Hand. You’ll have to do as well.”

Before the execution, Maegor learned the traitors burned the Stormlander bodies and tossed the ashes. Orys Baratheon, born a bastard, growing up to be Lord of the Stormlands and Hand of the King, dying treacherously _and_ like a true Targaryen. Maegor bites back a snort. He’s always known the Seven were mocking bastards. Whether they exist outside of children stories or even resemble what the septons say. He still finds a hundred reasons to ignore them, but perhaps he’s starting to understand the joke.

Flying here took an embarrassing amount out of him. He slept like the dead after the mass hanging, not even hearing the creak of the ropes. Weak for now, but not much longer. Aenys has managed to survive, hasn’t he?

It’s strange to him, but standing still is more tiring than moving. He walks—shuffles, perhaps—to the closest edge, where he can see all down the Giant’s Lance. Can imagine he sees all the way to Dragonstone. And King’s Landing, where that High Septon totters around not knowing he’ll soon know the last thing Harren Hoare and the Gardener King saw.

Aenys soon follows. For half a heartbeat, Maegor wonders if his brother is about to shove him clear off the edge. Perhaps he considers it. He doesn’t hold it against him. But Aenys only stands close.

“That’s a long fucking view,” he says, forcing himself not to sway on his feet.

“It is.” Aenys takes his wrist, rolls his eyes. “But let's go inside before you faint clear off the mountain.”

A part of him will always want to snarl and shake him off. Doubtless Aenys has wanted to finish what he started that day in the clearing. If there’s any joke Maegor finally understands, it’s that there’s just enough mocking fondness, enough fury that confuses itself for fervor, they somehow don’t kill each other

For now, that will have to do.

**The End**

**...**

_(in rerum natura?)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had tons of fun writing this! Any interest in a follow-up fic?


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